A man wearing a sanitary pad is more likely to get made fun of than respected. But Fast Company has an amazing story on one Indian inventor named Arunachalam Muruganantham, who lost his wife, friends and almost everything in his quest to build a better sanitary napkin by wearing one himself.

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After learning that his wife (along with almost all women in India) couldn't afford sanitary napkins, the high school drop-out made a decision to invent an inexpensive alternative. The gutsy 49-year old inventor taught himself English and called up a US-based multinational to ask what raw materials he needed. The answer, or crucial ingredient was wood pulp. 

But before he got his list of raw materials, he tested the product out himself in a way some would find disgusting and unsanitary:
"...fashioning his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat's blood, Muruganantham went about his life while wearing women's underwear, occasionally squeezing the contraption to test out his latest iteration."
Muruganantham patented his machine after he was presented a National Innovation Foundation award by President Pratibha Patil in 2005. While companies like Procter & Gamble produce napkins that sell up to 30 rupees (RM1.70) a packet, his are sold for as little as 10 rupees.

Now, he's enabled women who couldn't afford proper menstruation-care more freedom to go about their lives without the barrier of having to deal with unhygienic rags. The best part is that he doesn't just sell the napkins but the machines as well which are funded by NGOs, thus creating jobs to members of rural communities in India.

[Independent]